I have said that Sandy was one of the most indefatigable of shopkeepers. It was but for the first few months, however, when all was smooth water and easy sailing; in a few months more, when the tide had begun to set in against him, he became less attentive. Some of his fancy goods were becoming old-fashioned, and in consequence unsaleable, and his stock, large at first, was continuing large still. What between the price of stamps, too, the rate of discount, and the expense of travelling to the several banks in which he did business, he found that the profits of his trade were more than balanced by the expenditure. Sandy’s heart, therefore, began to fail him; and, setting himself to seek amusement elsewhere than behind his counter, he got a smart young lad to take charge of the shop in his absence; and, as it could not add very materially to the inevitable expense, he provided himself with a horse. He was now every day on the road doing business as his own traveller. He rode twenty miles at a time to secure a five-shilling order, or crave payment of a five-shilling debt. He attended every horse-race and fox-hunt in the country, and paid the king’s duty for a half-starved greyhound: Sandy was happy outside his shop, and his lad was thriving within. Matters went on in this train for so long as two years, and the hapless shopkeeper began to perceive that the few hundreds advanced him by his father had totally disappeared in the time, and to wonder what had become of them. Still, however, his stock in trade, though somewhat less showy than at first, was nearly equal in value to one-third his liabilities; the other two-thirds were debts incurred by his old master; and at worst there lay no other obstacle between him and a highly respectable settlement with his creditors than the unlucky indorsations of his father. He rose, however, one morning to learn that his master had absconded during the night, leaving the shop-key under the door-sill; in a few days after, Sandy had absconded too; and his poor father, who had paid all his debts till now, and had taken a pride in paying them, found that his unfortunate indorsations had involved him in irretrievable ruin. Bankruptcy was a very different matter to the rigidly honest old man from what it was to either Sandy or his master.